the mind meat of business ethics: hopefully food for thought søren wenstøp – november 2012 bi...
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The mind meat of business ethics: Hopefully food for thought
Søren Wenstøp – November 2012BI Center for Climate Strategy
Business as a meeting place
Where minds meet on a truely inter-disciplinary arena.
A marketplace for ideas, where what works sells at a primium.
Hopes and fears, risks and opportunities
The beehives of science
My aim:
Interdisciplinary integration!
Basic scientific outlook
Beliefs in contiuous need of justification:• Coherence
The need to conform across• Correspondence
The need to conform to evidence
A moral outlook
• Beliefs about what is Necessary but insufficient
On the other side of Hume’s dictum:• Values about what ought to be
(desires, wishes, hopes, fears, ...)
Ethics and business
• Business is intrinsically relational and within the domain of morality or ethics.
• Practical ethics is also (in a wider or tigher sense) relational.
• Central ethical notions such as ‘ought’ bear a kinship with our dealings in business. (Etymologically ‘ought’ and ‘ought to’ comes from ‘owed to’).
• Business and ethics both concern how we act, interact, and transact socially.
Stepping back: Meta-ethics(Meta-ethics Normative ethics)
• Is there normativity?• What is normativity?• Where does is come from?
Meta-ethical questions as scientific questions1
• Is there normativity?
• What is normativity?
• Where does is come from?
Meta-ethical questions as scientific questions2
• Is there normativity? Yes
• What is normativity?Affect-based, affect-infused deliberationEmotions, feelings, volitions, intentions
• Where does is come from? The brain
Lines of objection(Philosophy, Psychology, Neuroscience)
Philosophy
Psychology
Neuroscience
Behaviorism
Cognitivism
Affect theory
• Paradigmatic monopolization • Battle across disciplines
• Behaviorism tends to reject cognitivism and affect theory
• Cognititvism tends to reject behaviorism and affect theory
50’ 60’ 70’80’ 90’ 00’
00’ 10’ ?
Objections to affect
• Explicit claims and implicit positions:
(1)Affect does not exist(2)Affect cannot be studied scientifically(3)Affect is not important or relevant
The scientific pecking order
Behaviorism
Cognitivism
Affect theory
The classical behaviorist objection1
(Psychology)
• The behaviorist view of the brain / mind:
The classical behaviorist objection2
(Psychology)
• Talking about the mind = ‘mentalism’.• The brain is ‘a black box’ (Skinner, 1938)• Unconditioned stimulus and unconditioned
response• The law of conditioning & the law of extinction
• No way to study the nature of the mind scientifically
• Affect is a mental notion, and mental notions are mere fictions
‘The cognitive revolution’(Psychology, neurocience)
• Talking about the mind is again legitimate• Talking about the brain is again legitimate• Talking about cognition is great• However, talking about emotions is still suspect
... unless it can be re-conceptualized as a form of congition! ‘Hot cognitions’ (Abelson, 1963)
‘Cognitive imperialism’(Psychology)
• Tomkins (1963) alerted us to ‘cognitive imperialism’; the imperialistic tendicies of ‘cognitive psychology’, and its detrimental effect for a correct understanding of affect.
Classical philosophical objection1
(Philosophy)
• ‘The open question argument’ (Moore, 1903): O is X,Y,Z ... but is it good (or bad)?
A meaningful question, but with a reply: Yes/No
NaturalismPositive affects are good / negative affects
bad.
Classical philosophical objection2
(Philosophy)
• ‘The naturalist fallacy’ (Moore, 1903): Deriving something natural from something
non-natural
This is not really soReversely: Something non-natural projected
from something natural. Normativity rooted in reality.
Moore’s solution: Unanalyzable, non-natural properties amounts to unexplainable mysticism.
Where do oughts come from?
?
Projectivism
‘Oughts’ are internal
The emotion brain
(The ‘mind meat’ of business ethics)
The basis of emotions and affect is sub-cortical (Panksepp, 1998).
Layered emotional systems(Paksepp & Biven, 2012)
CarePlayJoy
FearRage
LustSeeking
Cognition
• 7 distinct ancient (sub-cortical) emotional systems, which we share with all other mammals.
• Highly developped cortexial functions are disticticely human.
Cognition and affect
The extended libic system
The individual as social-relational
Care
The care system’s multiple potensialities
Care
Roles
Relations
Business professionalism(A very rough analysis)
Care
Role(professional)
BusinessRelation
sSeeking
Success(profit)
Relational business ethics(Acceptance with worries attached)
• We are to a considerable extent guided by and also limited by our relational emotional capacities.
• Within-relational ethics leaves us with problems of relational-external costs (relational externalities).
• Rent-seeking behavior, in particular, seems to be an especially strong relational glue. It can blind us to wider social consequences.
• Example: Human-induced climate change.• Can we and should expand the relational circles; at
what relational-internal sacrifice? What would this mean for business?
